hah!
Well... first day in an American grad school.
I was happy to get out of the house today. Other than the fact that I would have had to do so, anyway... it being first day of classes and all... I've been stuck in the house [and yes, I know that a post on the house is due... tomorrow... I promise.] for three days, thanks to tropical storm Fay, that became tropical depression Fay.
From Friday afternoon till Saturday afternoon, the rain didn't stop. I'm not kidding.
I never thought a day would dawn where I'd pray for the rain to stop but it did...
It's not a huge volume when it comes but it's a pretty decent volume that just keeps on going... as if it were on Duracell batteries...
Dad managed to take back the umbrella we'd brought along, with him and thus, I was stuck - no umbrella, no car, no raincoat... nothing to do...
Yet, with the internet on... I survived.
I was praying that things would let up today (they were supposed to, according to the weather people) and they did.
After a restless night, I got up, had breakfast, got ready, mooched about on the web for a bit, had a sandwich for lunch and off I was!
My vehicle... My new bicycle. I haven't biked at all in the last 5 years and this was tiring... I'm not pooped - which is a good thing... shows I'm not in terrible shape...yet I have a feeling I won't have too much trouble getting to sleep tonight. In fact, this post almost didn't happen... I was ready to fall asleep at the desk... yet, being the good boy I am, I decided to do the dishes... which has given me a spurt of energy that brings you this post. Yay for the dishes!
It took me twenty minutes to get to school. Parked the bike near the Education building [Yes I know... pictures of my college are also due but I don't quite promise as to when those will come up] and I just sat around for about ten minutes, getting my breath and strength back.
Note to self: From tomorrow, carry a water bottle and a towel.
The class was fun. Today's class: EME 5601 - Introduction to Instructional Systems. The teacher is called Dr. John Keller and he seems like quite a nice guy.
He gave a brief introduction to class procedures... though not quite to the subject and we had a small learning/diagnostic exercise in class.
A Ph.D student gave us her research survey - representing mental models as graphs. It involved representing our understanding of a problem set to us, through the use of circles (nodules/vertices) and links (edges, showing correlation).
The teacher decided to gauge our knowledge about Instructional Systems by asking us to relate, according to us, what an Instructional Designer would need to do, to create a study unit for 5th graders...
It was fun... I wonder if he will give feedback.
After class, I went and spent some money. I needed change for a fifty!
Got a keychain for all the keys I'm collecting and a teddy bear in an FSU jersey! I still need something to cuddle!
Our FSU ID card is a jack of many trades.
It is my ID card, library card, can act as a debit card and also has a chip on it, on which I load money. I need that to use the laundry at this apartment community.... hence the need to change a fifty. Those cash to chip machines don't take fifties and I wasn't interested in putting so much money on the card either.
I cycled back - another twenty minutes - at approximately 6 km total, each day and three days a week (at least) of cycling... I should get into pretty neat shape by the time I'm done here. Woo!
As I mooched around, getting my breath and strength back (again), I hailed a neighbour.
I'd already been leaning towards procrastinating the laundry again but I saw him coming back with an empty laundry bag and decided to go grill him about the way the laundry works.
We ended up talking for about half an hour and I made a new friend!
Well, Andrew and I didn't talk about laundry but he's at FSU for a graduate program in Religion and he happens to be focussing on Hinduism. So that led to different topics... he also a teacher... and I have a neighbour/friend to bother here! Yay!
He's also offered to let me tag along on grocery trips.. which is also great!
So yeah.. graduate life... by oneself... at this point, not very different from what I've been doing these last two years... except for the lack of friends/acquaintances at this point... but with one down, another hello at the laundry and getting a little more comfortable with my classmates... things are looking up!
On a concluding note... I have a point to ponder.
Whilst it's only natural that people are drawn to people similar to them, I wonder whether complete insularity in a community such as this, where tons of graduate students come from all over the world, is completely healthy. The Indians, the Koreans, the Chinese and the others seem to form some sort of nationalistic herds and don't seem to delve outside of them too much.
Call me elitist, call me weird, call me an explorer... but I think it's always more interesting to get to know new people and new points of view... where is the adventure? where is the experience in sticking to what/who we know...
(Disclaimer for the above: I am, by no means, claiming to be the most outgoing, enthusiastic, extroverted person around. I'm actually pretty shy as far as making first contact goes but I'm working on it.. and if you're going to come so far from home to do something, shouldn't you grad all opportunities you get? That's what I'm getting at...)
Well... first day in an American grad school.
I was happy to get out of the house today. Other than the fact that I would have had to do so, anyway... it being first day of classes and all... I've been stuck in the house [and yes, I know that a post on the house is due... tomorrow... I promise.] for three days, thanks to tropical storm Fay, that became tropical depression Fay.
From Friday afternoon till Saturday afternoon, the rain didn't stop. I'm not kidding.
I never thought a day would dawn where I'd pray for the rain to stop but it did...
It's not a huge volume when it comes but it's a pretty decent volume that just keeps on going... as if it were on Duracell batteries...
Dad managed to take back the umbrella we'd brought along, with him and thus, I was stuck - no umbrella, no car, no raincoat... nothing to do...
Yet, with the internet on... I survived.
I was praying that things would let up today (they were supposed to, according to the weather people) and they did.
After a restless night, I got up, had breakfast, got ready, mooched about on the web for a bit, had a sandwich for lunch and off I was!
My vehicle... My new bicycle. I haven't biked at all in the last 5 years and this was tiring... I'm not pooped - which is a good thing... shows I'm not in terrible shape...yet I have a feeling I won't have too much trouble getting to sleep tonight. In fact, this post almost didn't happen... I was ready to fall asleep at the desk... yet, being the good boy I am, I decided to do the dishes... which has given me a spurt of energy that brings you this post. Yay for the dishes!
It took me twenty minutes to get to school. Parked the bike near the Education building [Yes I know... pictures of my college are also due but I don't quite promise as to when those will come up] and I just sat around for about ten minutes, getting my breath and strength back.
Note to self: From tomorrow, carry a water bottle and a towel.
The class was fun. Today's class: EME 5601 - Introduction to Instructional Systems. The teacher is called Dr. John Keller and he seems like quite a nice guy.
He gave a brief introduction to class procedures... though not quite to the subject and we had a small learning/diagnostic exercise in class.
A Ph.D student gave us her research survey - representing mental models as graphs. It involved representing our understanding of a problem set to us, through the use of circles (nodules/vertices) and links (edges, showing correlation).
The teacher decided to gauge our knowledge about Instructional Systems by asking us to relate, according to us, what an Instructional Designer would need to do, to create a study unit for 5th graders...
It was fun... I wonder if he will give feedback.
After class, I went and spent some money. I needed change for a fifty!
Got a keychain for all the keys I'm collecting and a teddy bear in an FSU jersey! I still need something to cuddle!
Our FSU ID card is a jack of many trades.
It is my ID card, library card, can act as a debit card and also has a chip on it, on which I load money. I need that to use the laundry at this apartment community.... hence the need to change a fifty. Those cash to chip machines don't take fifties and I wasn't interested in putting so much money on the card either.
I cycled back - another twenty minutes - at approximately 6 km total, each day and three days a week (at least) of cycling... I should get into pretty neat shape by the time I'm done here. Woo!
As I mooched around, getting my breath and strength back (again), I hailed a neighbour.
I'd already been leaning towards procrastinating the laundry again but I saw him coming back with an empty laundry bag and decided to go grill him about the way the laundry works.
We ended up talking for about half an hour and I made a new friend!
Well, Andrew and I didn't talk about laundry but he's at FSU for a graduate program in Religion and he happens to be focussing on Hinduism. So that led to different topics... he also a teacher... and I have a neighbour/friend to bother here! Yay!
He's also offered to let me tag along on grocery trips.. which is also great!
So yeah.. graduate life... by oneself... at this point, not very different from what I've been doing these last two years... except for the lack of friends/acquaintances at this point... but with one down, another hello at the laundry and getting a little more comfortable with my classmates... things are looking up!
On a concluding note... I have a point to ponder.
Whilst it's only natural that people are drawn to people similar to them, I wonder whether complete insularity in a community such as this, where tons of graduate students come from all over the world, is completely healthy. The Indians, the Koreans, the Chinese and the others seem to form some sort of nationalistic herds and don't seem to delve outside of them too much.
Call me elitist, call me weird, call me an explorer... but I think it's always more interesting to get to know new people and new points of view... where is the adventure? where is the experience in sticking to what/who we know...
(Disclaimer for the above: I am, by no means, claiming to be the most outgoing, enthusiastic, extroverted person around. I'm actually pretty shy as far as making first contact goes but I'm working on it.. and if you're going to come so far from home to do something, shouldn't you grad all opportunities you get? That's what I'm getting at...)
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